Tag Archives: animal rescue

The last few evenings have found me sitting at my laptop (usually on the couch with my dog-cat trying to head-butt his way into my lap and a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy in my right hand*) scrolling around Facebook hungrily. I felt like an addict seeking a fix while at the same time feeling bored. This feeling has repeated itself nearly every time and every way I’ve accessed the site and other forms of social media lately. I catch myself checking feeds almost compulsively and feeling empty after. Last night I hit a wall, though, and realized that I had finally reached the place where I didn’t even want to be on Facebook anymore. I got actually angry at something someone posted and it wasn’t even a post that warranted an emotional response. I just got annoyed and then angry and found myself calling this person stupid as I sat and talked to the dog-cat.

So much for kindness…

Maybe the person was being annoying and maybe their comment was stupid, and yes, my internal response was unkind and exactly the kind of thing that I am trying to overcome, but the reality is that there is also a lot of crap on Facebook that just wears people out. For example? Sad animal stories. I have a lot of friends who are involved with animal rescue. I have been involved with rescue groups off and on myself, and my cats are rescue kitties. I’m not opposed to the occasional post about how and animal needs help or something heroic someone has done for an animal in need. Instead of moderation, however, my feed is pretty much one shared link or video or page after another of tear-jerking stories about animals in need or who have been abused. It’s like a never-ending sad animal Sarah McLachlan commercial for the ASPCA or something. The more of those shares I see the less of a damn I give—something that frightens me.

CHANGE THE CHANNEL!

That’s not to say that all I see are sad story animals on my Facebook. There are other things as well and most of them wear on me, too. If it isn’t a sad animal story it’s a share of some fundraising thing for me to go donate money to someone’s surgery, school, disaster recovery, whatever fund. I’m a giving person. If I have money that I can spare and put towards helping another person I will do it, but just today when I looked at my feed if I had donated even five dollars to every “please help” link I would be blowing my entire paycheck.

Yes, I can hide those kinds of stories and shares, but even when I do something new pops up in my feed that is just emotionally draining noise. What happened to posting about your actual life or your thoughts on something? Don’t just post a link and call that communicating. Don’t just post a check-in somewhere. Talk about what you’re doing? Checking into the gym? Awesome! What are you going to do at the gym today? How are you feeling about it? Getting any results? Read an article that really moved you about the plight of an adorable shelter dog? Tell me why that article moved you so much. Think there is a fundraiser that I should help with? Message me directly and tell me why you think it’s a worthy cause. I get on Facebook to hear the stories and experiences of the people I consider part of my world. I don’t want a link. I want you. I want to be able to comment and interact with you about it, not just click a video and be depressed. I am sick of Upworthy, Viralnova, and whatever other content bullshit sites packaging half-truths for the social media diet. That crap’s mental junk food and it does nothing positive for anyone. It makes me want to post mean things.

It’s really hard to be kind when mental junk food is leaving you hungry and making you mean.

So what am I doing about this? I’m thinking about taking a break from Facebook for awhile, maybe a week or maybe a month. The break is mostly for me to clear my head because the reality is people aren’t going to change what they post no matter how much I wish they would. It’s going to have to be on me to seek out interaction that has nothing to do with sad animals or fundraisers. I’m going to have to go the extra mile and connect as a human being and not a mouse scroll. The change has to be with me. I can’t expect the change to come from anywhere else.

Let’s see where it goes.

*Yes, I know. This is not a gluten-free beer. I’m still trying to get the hang of things. If anyone has any great beer suggestions that are celiac-safe and I can mix with tasty lemonade please comment and share them with me. Otherwise I’ll just suffer a bit because I’m sort of a huge fan of Summer Shandy.